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[16]
also
there are certain external advantages, the lack of which sullies supreme felicity, such as
good birth, satisfactory children, and personal beauty: a man of very ugly appearance or
low birth, or childless and alone in the world, is not our idea of a happy man, and still
less so perhaps is one who has children or friends1 that are worthless, or who
has had good ones but lost them by death.

1 Perhaps ‘or friends’ is slipped in because of ‘alone in
the world’ just above, but friends should not be mentioned here among the
indispensable conditions of happiness, as they were included just above among its
instruments （see 8.2, first note）.